The German Great Escape

By Peter Phillips

On 10 March 1945, in the biggest mass-breakout of the war, 70 German POWs escaped through a tunnel dug under the wire of Camp 198 - Island Farm in Bridgend, south Wales. In its planning and ingenuity it matched any Allied escape, featuring ventilated and lined tunnels, false walls, forged documents, maps drawn on handkerahiefs and shirt tails, even the use of curry powder to distract the guard dogs. But the German Great escape was only one part of the Island Farm story. The camp was originally built to house women ordnance workers in the biggest bomb-factory in Europe. It became a staging post for American troops training for D-day, before being hastily transformed into a POW camp for German officers captured on the western front. Later it held senior German military and Nazi figures prior to the Nuremburg War Trials, among them von Rundstedt - Hitler's General. Author Peter Phillips's expert narrative sets the events at Island Farm against the broad sweep of history, from appeasement, and re-armament, to the Blitz, the battles of the GIs who passed through, and the campaigns of the German top brass who were later camp inmates. Taking in tensions between the Wehrmacht and SS, a suspicious death and the British de-Nazification programme, Phillips also explores the regime under which the POWs were kept and their reception by the public in south Wales. The German Great Escape is a fascinating account of a remarkable episode in wartime history. Book jacket.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1854113836
• ISBN13: 9781854113832
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Seren Books
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.9" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

More than your usual POW Story

I was prompted to buy this book by the fact that I was born in the Bridgend area in 1948 and knew many of the people associated with the Island Farm Camp and the recapture of the escapees. What I got, as an unexpected bonus, was an outstanding over view of the run up to WW2, the fortunes of those who came to the Camp and those who were to come there. Peter Phillips' style of writing makes for an unputdownable book and his extensive research helps gives a hitherto unseen slant on how the War effected the lives ordinary folk, as well as those who had a direct influence on its outcome. A fascinating account of our recent history for which Mr Phillips is to be congratulated.